Introduction
Students will begin the unit by learning that America is a country made up of immigrants from many cultures, and America is a nation that embraces and welcomes diversity. To exemplify the cultural diversity in America, students will read the words "I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear," from the poet Walt Whitman's "I Hear America Singing." They will learn career vocabulary used in this poem such as: boatman, shoemaker, and wood-cutter. They will discuss the diverse groups of Americans that this poem represents. As they begin to grasp the concept of American diversity, they will also read the "The New Colossus," a poem by Emma Lazarus. This is the poem inscribed on the Statue of Liberty that welcomes all immigrants to this country. They will learn the meaning of the words in the following lines: "Give me your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free/The wretched refuse of your teeming shore/ send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me/ I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" Students will lower their 'affective filter' (language learning anxiety) by making personal responses as they share their own immigrant experiences with each other. I have underlined some of the Sheltered English strategies that I have used in this unit.
The students will then read the lyrics and sing the song "This Land is Your Land" by Woody Guthrie. My students will show their understanding of the vocabulary in this song by illustrating phrases such as "the redwood forest" and "the New York island" and locating these places on a map.
Part I --The North
Students will learn about the rural life and culture of the North and the area of New England. They will listen and read Frost's "Stopping By the Woods on a Snowy Evening" in Paschen's collection of children poems,
Poetry Speaks to Children
. This book also contains a CD with Frost, himself reciting this poem. This poem contains excellent examples of rhyme. We will excerpts from his collection of poems,
North of Boston.
We will also read "The Road Not Taken" and excerpts from the poem, "Birches." My students will learn that Frost writes about the simple everyday occurrences of his life. They will learn biographical information about Robert Frost who was born in 1874 and died in 1963. He was one of America's leading poets of the twentieth century and was a four-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize. They will discuss what words Frost uses to show his appreciation of nature. Students will identify the poet's use of rhyme, repetition, and metaphors in his poems.
In this section of the unit, students will also read several poems of Walt Whitman who began publishing his poems during the mid-1800's. While he lived in New Orleans for a short time, he witnessed a slave auction that created a lifelong disdain for the inhumanity of slavery. Because of his opposition to slavery, he supported Abraham Lincoln's abolition of slavery. Students will then read Whitman's "Oh Captain, My Captain!" that honors Lincoln after his death. Students will learn who the "Captain" is that Whitman is referring to in his poem and learn about metaphors.
My students will also read about Lincoln's life and his speech, "Gettysburg Address." My students will also read a picture book biography,
Honest Abe,
and respond by working with a partner to make a timeline of Lincoln's life (See Lesson Plan # 1). Students will then use this timeline as a pre-writing organizer to write a short biography of Lincoln's life. They will then illustrate one section of their biography of Lincoln, share them orally with their classmates, and display their work in the classroom. Students will then read excerpts from Lincoln's life including that he ran for office, and was defeated several times, but did not give up. They will respond to this reading by making a personal connection about a time that they had a problem and how they solved it.
Students will then read "Nancy Hanks" by Rosemary Carr and Stephen Vincent Benet. This poem is about an imaginary conversation that the mother of Lincoln might have had with a passerby about him. My students will learn vocabulary for feeling words and share their own feelings as they read and discuss this poem.
Next, my students will read selected poems of the prolific African American poet, Langston Hughes who is considered a Harlem Renaissance poet. They will learn that Hughes, who was born in 1902 and died in 1967, was one of America's greatest poets. He wrote about the difficulties, triumphs, and events in the everyday lives of African-Americans. They will learn details about the life of Hughes. My students will discuss the concept that people have their own individual differences but still are a part of a common humanity as they read excerpts from Hughes' poem, "Telephone Book" from Rampersad's
Collected Poems of Langston Hughes:
We're all in the telephone book,
Folks from everywhere on earth--
Anderson to Zabowski
It's a record of America's worth. (Rampersad, 1995, 603).
My students will then read a short biography of Jackie Robinson (1919-1972). Although Jackie Robinson was born in Georgia in 1919, he won his struggle as the first African American to play major league baseball in 1947. This was a time when African Americans traditionally played on racially segregated baseball teams. He succeeded in his struggle and was the first African American to play major league baseball for the Brooklyn Dodgers in New York. Students will respond to this reading by imagining that they are writing a letter to Jackie Robinson informing him of the of the very different experiences that African American baseball players now have as they play professional baseball on racially integrated baseball teams. Students will learn the proper style to use when writing a friendly letter and be able to identify parts of a friendly letter including the return address, salutation, body and closing. (See Lesson Plan # 2).
Students will also read about American women's struggle for voting rights and excerpts from in Susan B. Anthony's 1873 speech, "Are Women Persons?" as she speaks of her hope for the day when all American citizens shall be equal and share the rights to vote. Students will look at visual images of life and how people dressed in the 1800's in the United States. They will look at pictures of clothing, and discuss social norms and proper behavior of that time period. As students brainstorm and discuss women's struggles for freedom, students will work in groups of three to complete a Venn Diagram that will compare women's roles in the past and present. Hillary Clinton will serve as a role model for students to understand that women today are equal to their male peers. They will read excerpts from Clinton's life in Guernsy' biographical book,
Hillary Rodham Clinton.
They will first organize their writing with a graphic organizer using a Venn Diagram. Students will continue to work together to use this writing organizer as a pre-writing exercise to write paragraphs of comparison and contrast). Each group will have the opportunity to present their writings orally to other groups in the class.
Part 2--The South
In this section of the unit, students will look at voices of the American South. Then they will read "The Runaway Slave" that exemplifies people helping runaway slaves on the Underground Railroad. Students hear the voice of a runaway slave, Harriet Tubman, as they read excerpts from her biography, her experiences on the Underground Railroad as she helped other slaves reach the North and their own freedom. Students will respond to this reading by making a map to show the route that runaway slaves might have taken as they traveled to the North to their freedom on the Underground Railroad with Harriet Tubman. Then my students will write their personal reactions to slavery after they view pictures of a slave auction and discuss them.
To activate prior knowledge, prior to reading King's speech, "I Have a Dream", I will ask what the students know about the life of Martin Luther King. Then I will show pictures of King and discuss aspects of his life. Students will learn about segregation, prejudice, and equal rights. Students will next watch and listen to a video of King before they read excerpts from the speech. They will then compare the rights of African Americans in the time of Tubman, King, and the present day using a Comparison Matrix. Students will list Tubman, King, and today the top of a paper, and along the left side of the paper they will include category boxes such as: rights, homes, school, and jobs while creating the matrix. They will later use the information in this graphic organizer as a pre-writing organizer before writing complete sentences.
Part 3--The West
In this section of the unit, students will hear the voices of the Americans from the West. My students will read excerpts from Mark Twain's
Tom Sawyer
and learn about life on the Mississippi River. Then students will then read a short poem by Hamlin Garland, "On the Mississippi." They will compare these two literary works by first using a Venn Diagram, and then they will write sentences based on the information in the graphic organizer.
Students will also read the first few chapters from the children's book
Traveled West in a Covered Wagon
by Ellen Levine that weaves a tale of overcoming hardships on the Oregon Trail. Students will also illustrate their understanding about daily life in a covered wagon by drawing a picture and writing a caption for the picture. They will also draw a diagram and label parts of a covered wagon, and then share their drawings with classmates. Students will use oral language skills to discuss their diagram with classmates. After reading this children's book, students will write a personal response by drawing a covered wagon and writing some of the items that the pioneers might bring with them on such a trip. They will then use these words in sentences to explain why they chose specific items. For example, "Pioneers might bring a shovel and hoe that they need to work on their new farms or they might bring a gun to hunt animals for food and for protection."
Students will then experience the voice of Native Americans by reading Bruchac's folktale,
Pushing Up the Sky
. They will develop an understanding of the importance of nature for these people and how much they value it. Students will then use a T-Chart graphic organizer to identify aspects of the story that could be real and those that are fantasy. They will discuss the moral of the story that we succeed when we work together and help each other.
My students will then read the short speech of the Native American Chief Joseph, of the Nez Perce Tribe, "I Will Fight No More Forever." They will list and discuss reasons why they think Chief Joseph has chosen to stop fighting. They will write a response to this piece by telling why they agree or disagree with Chief Joseph's decision. Students will also draw maps of the West identifying the Santa Fe Trail and locations of various Native American groups including the Cherokee and Nez Perce tribes. My students will study Native American tribes and their different ways of life including their homes, food, and clothing in a unit on Native Americans later in the year.
Next my students will read Latino author Gary Soto's poem, "Letter to a Father Working in Tulare, California," that describes the difficult life of a migrant farm worker in California. Students will also read a speech by Cesar Chavez, "God Help Us to Be Men!" who was an outspoken critic of the conditions of Mexican-Americans working as migrant farm laborers, and their struggles.
Working in small groups, students will make a list of some of the hardships that migrant workers experience on migrant farms.
Students will respond to their reading throughout the unit through various activities that will promote literacy and an understanding of diversity of voice and culture. They will use a matrix graphic organizer to review and summarize various obstacles that they encountered in their reading and how characters and people solved their problem. They will compare the obstacles of Native Americans and those of Latino Americans. (See Lesson Plan #3).
Another literacy skill that students will learn at this time will be how to distinguish between cause and effect. Students will read sentences that will provide a review of the different voices that have learned in this unit. They will separate parts of the sentences into causes and effects. They will write their answers on a graphic organizer using arrows and circles to distinguish between cause and effect.(Although there are different graphic organizers to show cause and effect, I chose this one because they will need to be able to recognize this graphic organizer and its purpose for the Connecticut Mastery Test).
They will also learn about signal words like "because" or "so" or " since" that denote either cause or effect. The following sentences are examples of sentences that I will use in this cause and effect lesson that will also help students review previously learned content in the unit. Slaves were treated badly by their masters so they ran away. Chief Joseph said, "I will fight no more" because he did not want anymore of the people in his tribe to die in battles with American soldiers. Because Martin Luther King believed that segregation was unfair to African Americans, he worked to change the law. Since migrant farmers experienced bad working conditions, Cesar Chavez worked to get unions to help them. Susan B. Anthony worked for the right for women to vote since she believed that women were equal to men.
Conclusion
Students will engage in written responses to their readings and gain new skills such as journal and letter writing. They will use their imaginations and choose one writer and write a poem or piece of prose that will represent one of the diverse voices that they have studied in the unit. They will use critical thinking skills to build their understanding and interpret the works they have studied in the unit. Students will also enhance their listening skills and writing skills by engaging in such strategies as visualization and making predictions. They will actively listen to readings, stories and speeches. They will practice note-taking skills and use these to engage in reflection and summary writing. They will also keep daily journals to advance their understanding of themes and vocabulary. Throughout the unit students will be encouraged to think about similarities and differences in various works that they have read.
As a culminating activity, students will celebrate their learning with an Author's Tea. They will use their oral language skills as they make oral presentation to share their own writing projects generated in this unit that illustrates one section of the American cultural diversity that they have studied. They will use good listening skills as they become part of the audience for their classmates. During this activity students will be encouraged to dress up in costume as they dramatize a character or author that they have read about in the unit. Students will invite family members to become audience members in this activity. This will serve to facilitate parental involvement and allow students to gain a greater sense of pride in their own learning and academic accomplishments.
This unit will reinforce themes such as: American diversity, overcoming obstacles, and the appreciation of the beauty of nature around them. This unit will foster my students' the understanding that it is through hard work and determination that people meet with success and the realization of their dreams. This unit will encourage English language learners to continue to work hard to overcome obstacles in their own lives and as they strive to meet academic success in their own education. This unit will also provide an initial understanding of various voices found in literature, provide students with an exposure to different genres of literature and cultural differences of people in the United States. Finally, will my students will learn that we must value both the difference and universality of all people.
